Applied Physics

Plasmonics Advance Yields 2-D 'Invisibility' Cloak

A research team at Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering comprised of Professor Christopher Davis, Research Scientist Igor Smolyaninov, and graduate student Yu-Ju Hung, has used plasmon technology to create the world's first invisibilit ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 19 2007 - 2:07am

Research: Supercritical Method Of Converting Chicken Fat Into Biodiesel

Chemical engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have investigated supercritical methanol as a method of converting chicken fat into biodiesel fuel. The new study also successfully converted tall oil fatty acid, a major by-product of the wood ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 19 2007 - 11:39am

MIT Researchers Correct Autism, Fragile X Symptoms In Mice

Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have corrected key symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice. The report in Neuron also indicates that a certain class of drugs could have the same effect. These drugs are not yet ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 19 2007 - 4:28pm

Low-Tech Innovation In The ICU

The other shoe drops. A year ago Atul Gawande wrote in The New Yorker about the Apgar score, a low-tech measurement of newborn viability that led to vast improvements in obstetrics. That’s the “how to improve?” side of things. Now Gawande has written abou ...

Article - Seth Roberts - Dec 21 2007 - 1:07am

How Plants Transport Sugars

In normal plants, when sugars (made from water and carbon dioxide during photosynthesis) accumulate in the leaves, photosynthesis slows down, and the plant does not take in as much carbon dioxide from the air. Likewise, when the sugars move out of the leav ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2007 - 7:47pm

Nanolaser Research Could Put The Library Of Congress In Your Wrist Watch

Every advance in memory storage devices presents a new marvel of just how much memory can be squeezed into very small spaces. Considering the potential of nanolasers being developed in Sakhrat Khizroev’s lab at the University of California, Riverside, thin ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 22 2007 - 2:30pm

CEL-III Protein Found In Sea Cucumber Inhibits Malaria Parasite Development

Scientists have genetically engineered a mosquito to release a sea-cucumber protein into its gut which impairs the development of malaria parasites, according to research in PLoS Pathogens. Researchers say this development is a step towards developing futu ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 24 2007 - 9:30am

Study: The Three Approaches Man Can Take In Response To Climate Change

Over the past 50 years, humans have changed the world’s ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other comparable period in human history. What researchers in a new Ambio paper are calling 'The Great Acceleration', stage 2 of the Anthr ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 23 2007 - 12:30pm

Ultrafast Electron Microscope Takes 4-D “Movies” Of Molecules

A unique electron microscope that can help create four-dimensional “movies” of molecules may hold the answers to research questions in a number of fields including chemistry, biology, and physics, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News. ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 25 2007 - 9:30am

Systems Biology Model Predicts Cell Dynamics In Extreme Environnment

A team of biologists have developed a model mapping the control circuit governing a whole free living organism. This is an important milestone for the new field of systems biology and will allow the researchers to model how the organism adapts over time in ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 27 2007 - 11:34pm